Solidarity for a Flourishing Community

Catholic Social Thoughts (CST) emphasizes the importance of promoting peace, preferential option for the poor, participation, solidarity, flourishing, and human being as a social being. CST views peace as an action-based positive idea that is closely related to justice. The preferential option for the poor is essential in achieving common good, and all individuals must participate equally to secure progress. Solidarity emphasizes treating everyone with equal dignity, regardless of their national, racial or cultural identity. Flourishing involves a sustainable quality that differentiates it from momentary happiness. Finally, CST highlights the importance of recognizing human beings as social beings, where individual flourishing is directly related to community flourishing.

Running head: CST PRINCIPLES
Catholic Social Principles and Self-Community
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CST PRINCIPLES
Catholic Social Thoughts
The catholic belief holds God at the center of everything and he ensures the love, justice
and peace for all his creations (Vatican.va, 2017). The following principles of CST reflect God’s
concern for social lives and are capable of guiding us to establish an intimate relationship
between ourselves and others who are surrounding us.
Human dignity and life
This principle teaches us that human dignity is at the core of society’s moral foundation
(Röpke, 2017). Our life is sacred and we must treat our dignity as one of the necessary higher
values to live a healthy life. The history of human civilization has experienced great changes in
the society; the struggle was difficult at times. The human dignity guided us at such difficult
times and it will. The present world has been suffering from acute materialism which leads us to
ignore the dignity (Srnicek, Fotou & Arghand, 2013). We forget or deliberately hurt other
people’s dignity in order to satisfy our goal of pleasure. We tend to forget that God imprinted
himself upon humans as the likeness encouraged him to do so. Catholic Social Teaching has a
defined position regarding the beginning and ending of life that reflects in issues like abortion or
euthanasia (Hitchcock, 2017). Human life and dignity is sacred. Therefore it is our responsibility
to protect our dignity from getting corrupted. The Catholic social thought encourages us to
engage in a practice where the right of every innocent soul is protected.

CST PRINCIPLES
Common good
Most humans place individual self at the centre of their life in the world because
individualism has become the primary key force of life. Individuals create the community but
not alone. The interdependence and coexistence of the individual are the basis of community
practice. The self growth in various aspects of life like political, economic, legal or societal gets
transcended and spreads in the global platform (Hopper, 2017). The common good is actually the
good deeds that individual brings to the society and the mutual benefit that gets generated out of
is shared by everyone. Government or other political institutions are active participants in the
process of achieving common good (Walker, 2014). For an isolated individual it is difficult to
achieve the common good but if we focus more on our collectivity than the self, we might be
able to achieve the common good in greater number more successfully. The Government and the
community consisting of individuals must work responsibly to achieve the common good and
enhance the condition of human existence in the world.
Subsidiarity
Subsidiarity is capable of producing benefit for both the community and the government.
If the issues are handled in a local level without the government’s intervention, it can enhance
the economic performance, efficiency and improve the society as a whole. The government is not
expected to act as a dominating force rather should defend the common good of the people
(McCann, 2014). The people should be allowed to work on their own to achieve their desired
performance.

CST PRINCIPLES
Stewardship of his Creations
Through the stewardship we can show our respect towards God. The high level of
consumerism should not limit us to act as consumers only; we have other responsibilities towards
God’s goods. The stewardship will guide us to fulfill our duties towards God’s creations and to
improve their condition of life (Caritas.org.au, 2017). We have to do that as a community. The
individuals must work collaboratively in taking care of God’s creations. We are just the bearers
of God’s messages and must fulfill assigned tasks of God (Tozer, 2015). We do not have any
authoritative power over any of God’s creations we are just assigned to take care of them.
Purpose of Goods
Every individual must possess equal right to the resources created by God; otherwise the
universal flourishing of human kind cannot be achieved. God’s goods are in various forms like
the benefits that individual or institutions achieve through profitable trades or the physical gain
of human labor. However these are not to be consumed by individuals, every living being is
given the equal right to it. The individual or collective greed works against the God’s purpose of
individual goods. To reach the universal destination all men and women should follow the
catholic principles and thus the challenges that occurred in stewardship and solidarity will be
resolved (Kearns, 2014).
Promotion of Peace
Peace is beyond just the resolution of conflicts; it deals with life’s completeness. Peace
can be achieved through mutual respect among individuals, institutions and nations. Catholic
Social Thoughts represents peace as an action based positive idea which is in close relationship
with justice (Groody, 2015). Peace can be experienced only when justice is achieved. The

CST PRINCIPLES
catholic teaching states that war can bring back the intended peace and there this belief is
supported by most contemporary governments.
Preferential option for the poor
The suffering and deprivation of the poor affects the society and is capable of failing the
purpose of God’s creation. Therefore it is our duty to create options for poor to develop and the
benefit will be shared by us or society as a whole. The common good cannot be achieved if
option for the poor is not integrated in the process. Like in the stewardship principle everyone
must be given equal opportunity to fulfill the purpose of God’s goods is hampered if the options
are not created for the poor. The marginal people of the society must be treated with special care
and only this way a community can gain its healthy status. The well being of the poor and the
community must be protected by establishing an effective social order (Curnow, 2015). The
church suggests the government to implement social and national policies that concerns the well
being of the poor. There are multiple social service groups that work for improvement and up
gradation of the poor and contribute significantly by following the common social orders to
improve the society as a whole.
Participation
The community cannot work effectively if everyone does not engage in participating. In
order to protect the human dignity and common good the participation from everyone of the
community is necessary (Reader, 2016). It is not expected that some are getting more
opportunities and some are getting excluded from participation. The communal activities demand
our participation as we demand justice from the society.

CST PRINCIPLES
Solidarity
Catholic Social thoughts teaches us that solidarity helps us to achieve the common good
as it has already taught us that all human beings create the large family and we are responsible
for taking care of each other. The interconnected humans must embrace the solidarity in order to
secure the progress of the whole society. The solidarity teaches us to treat everyone equally
irrespective of their national, racial or cultural identity (Beyer, 2014).
Flourishing
The flourishing is not just achieving the desired goal for a temporary period of time. The
flourishing must possess a sustainable quality which will differentiate it from momentary
happiness (Neave, 2016). The collaborative nature of among the individuals and communities
will ensure the human flourishing.
Human being as social being
We are all social beings. Our existence is difficult to imagine without the peaceful
coexistence of other social beings. The individual human represents the family and the
community and it is his duty to carry out the responsibilities within the community (Tonnies,
2017). Humans are defined by the relationships they maintain; otherwise the flourishing becomes
impossible to achieve. It is not just the relationship among individual but also the relationship
between the individual and the community.
CST, Self and Community flourishing
The individual flourishing is directly related to the community flourishing. Catholic
Social Thoughts will lead the individual and the community to lead an substantial and

CST PRINCIPLES
meaningful life (Tablan, 2015). The human dignity, common good, solidarity or promotion of
peace provides us with a common framework that prepares the platform for us to work on our
relationships. Our smallest contribution can bring great changes in the society so we have to be
careful about our contribution. Appreciation of hard work, protection of the poor and developing
together are the principle desire in which the catholic thoughts help us. Catholic Social Thoughts
is essential in our journey to maintain the relationship of self and community in order to achieve
the ultimate good.

CST PRINCIPLES
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